Carnival Triumph Review 09/01/07

[moesyk4]

Finally! Sorry it took so long; we had moved right as we were leaving and I've also started a new job, but I took plenty of notes. Ask any questions!

 

We booked the cruise through Travelocity and got a great past passenger rate. I talked to them several times on the phone and they were always very personable. My husband and I are 26 and 25 respectively; I have cruised through Carnival once and we have both cruised with RCCL once. We are not big drinkers, partiers, or gamblers, we enjoy exploring and relaxing. I hope this sets everything up right. This was our B2B cruise; the 1st of 2 cruises this trip.

 

Day 1: We flew with Delta airlines; my first flight with them and it was an ok experience. Flights were fine and on time, but they almost lost our carry on luggage, yes that's right, our carry on! But we made it Miami fine, two days before our flight. We had a crazy past month and wanted two days just to relax so we were rested up for the real vacation! We stayed at the Baymont Inn Miami Airport West. I hadn't heard a lot about this hotel but I was pleasantly suprised. It has an airport shuttle that picks up at the :30 from the airport. It's in a nice neighborhood where we felt very safe and has plenty of fast food and even some regular restaurants within walking distance. It also has a pool, continental breakfast, and free internet (including a computer to use). We got the room for $67 and it was very clean. We ate at Bruschetta's for dinner for my birthday and it was very good.

 

Day 2: Sleeping day! Literally, we slept, swam, and watched TV all day. Not much to review Hotel was still good!

 

Day 3: We took the airport shuttle back to the airport in order to catch a taxi there (The hotel is about 8 miles west of the airport so it would be quite a bit more expensive to have a taxi pick us up and take us straight to the port from there). Hotel shuttle arrived promptly on the hour and we caught a taxi right to the port. We got to the port around 11:00 am and there was only a very short line and they were already letting passengers on. Here is where the confusion started though. They removed the line rope and told us to go ahead to the larger check in area as the line was starting to get longer. We were the first ones and we kept getting herded back until we got upstairs. There a lady told us to wait until they brought the cards up. We waited, but thought it was suspicious we were the only ones there! Finally, the cards arrived and then we found out the ladies downstairs who sent us upstairs were supposed to have checked us in! Just a 15 minutes delay, but pretty annoying! Without that mishap, we would've been on the ship in about 15 minutes.

Finally, we were aboard the ship! I really enjoyed that the designs on this particular Carnival ship aren't too over the top. I thought it was very pretty. There are a lot of areas for every interest and plenty of options for things to do. We did notice some wear and tear in the South Beach club and our cabin, but the decks were in wonderful shape and people were always painting or whatever. We explored the ship and really liked what we saw. Of course, the buffet was open so we dug in. This was the one area of frustration all week. I am not a picky eater and my husband definately is NOT a picky eater but we never could find anything we liked in the actual buffet. The setup also made it really bad to get food because it would often take 20-25 minutes just to get through the line, even if you just wanted a dinner roll off the end of the line unless you just shoved in front of someone.

They did have excellent side places to go for which means we never starved. They had a 24 hour pizzeria, a burger place that served great burgers with all the trimmings, an excellent sandwich place where I ate often, and an asian place I never got the chance to try. So aside for the icky breakfast, we usually could avoid the buffet. The pools were not filled this day but that was fine.

The maitre'd is available after 1:30 to check your dinner seating. We were able to switch to a 2 top no problem! The staterooms were supposed to be open at this point; all the doors were still closed but everyone was just going through so we did too. We had gotten a great deal on a balcony and that was the highlight of the whole trip! It was so wonderful to be able to sit out there and have your own private view of paradise. We were always on the balcony, even though we don't normally sit in our rooms! The rooms are VERY spacious for a cruise ship and have tons of storage. We had 7 suitcases and had storage we didn't even use. We never actually met our room steward which was odd, but he always did his job. The bedding was excellent!

We went to the gym just about every day; it was a nice facility and we REALLY enjoyed the two hot tubs surrounded by glass in the middle. Plenty of equipment and a great view.

We did have a little problem with our luggage which was handled promptly. Our missing bag arrived by the end of the evening.

We had the late seating with servers Ioan and Alfonso. They were excellent and always on the ball. We really enjoyed the food in the dining room the whole trip and I thought the layout was very pretty. I had hot chocolate every night and it tasted like a yummy melted candy bar.

That night we went to see Phat Kat the comedian. He was our favorite comedian off of both cruises. Our CD was Paul Santley and he was AMAZING! I always thought it was silly that people talked so much about CDs until I had him. I just fell in love with him; he was funny and engaging and talented too. If you get this ship, you will have a great time! The always do Bingo right before the shows so they usually start a few minutes late.

 

Day 2: I used the walking track this day. There were a lot of walkers and they had actually just washed the track, which made it very slick and difficult to move fast, but it was a great way to watch us pull in to Half Moon Cay. I won't go back into breakfast, let's just say it's usually my favorite meal on cruises and on this ship I usually ended up eating a bagel. They had two omelette lines which were good and moved quickly on a sea day. Not worth it on a port day.

We took a tender to HMC, the process was smooth and we were off the ship in about 10 minutes. The beach is of course beautiful, a little more crowded and not quite as exotic as RCCL's CoCo cay but wonderful none the less. It was peaceful and you get to go deep. I had a 3 foot sting ray swim right underneath me. We didn't do an excursion on this day but just switched between swimming and laying out. We had the beach buffet and it was good; BTW you always have a selection of fruit punch, lemonade, iced tea, or water.

Suggestion: Bring your own water bottle from home and fill it up with your drink of choice. It's very handy on shore!

Triumph does not have a sports court, just an area to shoot hoops. It does have a mini golf course which we used several times. It also has ping pong which we didn't use.

Little did I know, but my sports loving husband has now become a Karaoke addict. We stopped by this first night and he went every night afterwards! They have karaoke every night from 9-1. We did have a good time listening to everyone and they have a good selection.

The performer that night was a country singer named Trent Bailey. It was ok, we only stayed for half the show. Then it was back to the balcony!

 

Day 3: This was the first day at sea. We slept in, grabbed breakfast, and went to the pools. The nice thing about this ship was with the exception of the buffet it never felt crowded. I didn't go down to look for chairs until 10:00 am and I found two chairs right by the pool and there were plenty more available. The pools aren't that big but they do the trick. There is a waterslide, but it was closed this day because of high winds. There was supposed to be Waters Wars, but it apparantely was cancelled but no one told us. About 15 people stood around for a half hour and I even went down to the Purser's desk and no cruise staff ever showed up. We laid out and then went to a Cornhole tournament right next to the casino. It was a lot of fun and a lot of people played, but we lost both times it was offered this week.

We went to the Newlywed show and it was hilarious! Good old Paul :)

Tonight was formal night. Just about everyone dressed up for this night. On most night, people were allowed to wear literally whatever they wanted except for bathing suits in the formal dining room, but it doesn't affect my meal. I always follow the dress code, but other people don't care as much and that's fine. They had the Captain's cocktail party which was fun and free drinks. They had a lot of drinks and appetizers that were delicious; live music and dancing! They had lobster; I've never had it before but it tasted fine, maybe a little rubbery.

Tonight was the "Around the World" dancers show. My husband and I both agreed Carnival does a great job on their shows. Their costumes were the best out of all 4 cruises we've been on and the shows were well put together. Then it was back to the karaoke bar!

 

Day 4: St. Thomas You have to go through immigration to get through St. Thomas. It's only about a 5 minute process that runs smoothly. We had booked a private tour through visnuba.com that included admission to Coral World. It was very easy to grab a taxi right outside the gate and you always ask the price. It was $9 to go there each way pp. I liked coral world, it wasn't very big and it would've been pricy if it hadn't been included but we got to feed sting rays and see giant turtles. Our private tour group only had 6 people in it which was really nice. If you've never tried snuba, you've got to!!! It's awesome. I won't explain the process, but you get to go scuba diving basically without the license. We were right be Coki Beach and get to go about 20 feet underwater. We didn't see anything really out of the ordinary but we got really close to everything and got to stay down a long time. We really enjoyed it. Sidenote: Coki Beach is VERY crowded and the launching point for many many snorkeling and snuba groups. It was wonderful for snuba but I would NOT recommend it for snorkeling or for just relaxing; too crowded and the coral is deep.

There are plenty of taxis waiting to take you back. We had a normal afternoon of working out and relaxing before dinner. The magic show that night was Kevin and Caruso; it was good but we found out the next week very similar to a lot of magic shows! Carnival's magician and RCCL's did mostly the exact same tricks. It was fun to watch though. They have an adult show which was also enjoyable and not dirty.

 

Day 5: San Juan I'll be honest and say I was not looking forward to San Juan. I just hadn't heard that many good things about it and I'm not at this age much into tours and such. Sidenote: It is a good idea to buy Frommer's "Guide to the Caribbean Ports of Call". Go on Ebay or half.com and buy an older edition for a buck and it gives excellent info and a great walking map of San Juan.

Anyways, we did do the walking tour of San Juan and this ended up being one of our favorite ports! The city itself is beautiful and the walking tour through Frommer's is excellent. We paid the $3 to get into El Morro which was absolutely beautiful! The whole tour took us about 3 1/2 hours with our El Morro stop and dropped us off in the shopping district. My husband found a cheap basketball It is a beautiful city.

Back on the ship, but waterslide was open. It was fun to go down, I'm sure especially so for kids. They had the past guest party this night and we of course got free appetizers and drinks. Paul did a great game on the stage. We also checked out the arcade; I can't believe how much parents spend on tokens for the kids! We enjoyed air hockey through the trip though.

The show that night was the comedian Eddie Capone and we thought he was very funny. It was back to Karaoke and then up to their special midnight Mexican buffet. Most nights, there were just burgers and pizzas except these special nights.

 

 

Day 6: Grand Turk. Grand Turk is only visiting by Carnival and they have a nice beach right off the ship. This is very convenient because you can hop on board and grab lunch and get right off again. This was the only port we got a ship excursion in and it was the Aqua boats. They are basically inflatable jet skis which seat two people and go pretty fast. We stopped to snorkel once and stopped on a beach for a few minutes. Our boat has some technical issues when starting up so we had to lean waaaay over the steering wheel to get it going (which didn't look good :) ), but that was just our boat. It was fun and a great way to view the island; I'm not sure I would do it again just because you are only actually on the boats for about 20-25 minutes total split between three stops. The excursion itself actually ended 30 minutes early including some time to hang out at their private little shop.

Carnival has set up the area around the beach with some nice little shops. The beach is a little rocky but we really enjoyed swimming around and seeing the island. We stopped in to see Margaritaville but I wasn't impressed. It's just not my type of fun, it was like a dance club, really crowded with a bunch of drunk people.

this was our second formal night. My husband watched the Colts tonight so we didn't do much. I went to the show by myself which was the dancers doing "Century Cafe". I thought it was cute. This was also the night of the Gala Buffet. We walked through and took pictures, but ended up passing on eating it because all the food was pleasing to the eye it did not look pleasing to the stomach. It was very beautiful set up though.

 

Day 7: Day at Sea. We were really glad this was not our last day on a cruise ship for this vacation (as we were off to the FOS!). We woke up to find the air conditioning had been turned off. A call to maintenace told us there was a technical issue which caused the air to be turned off for "15-20 minutes". this same technical issue knocked out half the elevators (miraculously, the casino remained untouched and functional:) ). Ok, Carnival can't help this or the fact this it was cloudy the whole day with spotty rain but they can help the fact that on a sea day, they NEVER had the pools open. It wasn't because of the weather because it had been sunny for the first part of the day, they just never filled them on a sea day! I thought that was terrible; what were we supposed to do?

Anyways, the balcony was our saving grace today. The air conditioning was turned on for 8 hours and we couldn't go outdoors because of the lack of water and the rain, so we watched the storm from our balcony and just relaxed. I felt bad for everone that had hoped for one last day for relaxation; we saw a lot of wet, drippy people sitting around staring off into space :)

We watched a movie to pass the time (there are always two new releases playing on TV) and went to Name that Tune which I enjoyed. I wished I had discovered the Piano Man earlier. The last few nights we sat in the Oxford Bar (the cigar bar) right before dinner. It was very relaxing and a quiet place where they usually had a trio playing wonderful music.

This last night we had the Carnival Legands show where Carnival guests karaoke to certain pop stars. It was hilarious and fun to watch. We also hit up the piano bar this night which I highly recommend.

 

Disembarktion: Alas, the last day had to arrive eventually. I can't comment on the disembarktion process because we weren't in any rush so we just sat and chatted. When we finally left, the whole process including immigration took a little under an hour. I had booked the Radisson downtown through Hotwire (which I normally love to use). It's about a 10 dollar cab ride and there are plenty of cabs available. The hotel is very beautiful with a rooftop pool and extensive lobby. We got a good deal; but I would never stay there again. As with most higher end hotels, they make you pay big time for the extra stuff. In order to do laundry, I had to lug 2 suitcases across the street, up 7 flights, and into a terrible little laundry room at another hotel. I had to use the internet to pay some bills and paid 7 bucks for 7 minutes.

We ordered a pizza through room service and it took 2 HOURS for us to get our food (they incorrectly brought the wrong pizza and tried to blame it on us). A tiny pizza for 18 bucks, yuck. I guess the view of the ships was nice, but we spent way more for what was supposed to be a cheap hotel. The neighborhood was NOT safe and at one point I ran back into the hotel as my husband and I were literally surrounded with about 8 homeless men. There was no food nearby unless you wanted to eat at a Checkers or a Burger King (where we literally watched two customers come back in and THROW their food at the cashiers).

 

Then it was off to the FOS, but that's for another board :)

 

Overall, I would definately sail on the Carnival Triumph again. We got a great rate for a beautiful ship that had wonderful amenities, spacious rooms, and great service. We felt at home by the end of the week and hated to leave :( Thanks for reading my loooooooong review!

[fizzbizz7]

Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed review.

I have to wait untill April for my cruise so I love reading everything that makes me feel like I am there now.:D

[dappledumpling]

Thanks for the great review. I personally love the longer reviews.. What is relevant to one cruiser is irrelevant to another. Glad you had a great cruise

[pacerzfan]

Thanks for the review, moesyk4.

[donut1130]

Thanks for a great review! We're sailing on Triumph in just 13 days and your review makes me even more excited!

[cathyoo]

great review, now I have to go find the other half

[hockeyluver]

Thanks for the great review, I didnt find it long at all :p I cant wait to get back on the Triumph.n We are trying to figure out what we are going to do for our excursions. We will be travelling with a large group and with our two teen daughters 16 and 18. They said they would both love to try parasailing any idea where this is offered?

[tomsmom]

We were on the same cruise and loved it. The ship is in great shape and the itinerary was perfect. We met wonderful people and had just so much fun.

 

hockyluver - Think you will find parasailing in Half Moon Cay and at Shappire Beach in St Thomas.

[Rick-n-MeMe]

We had the same waiters on the Triumph as you, the OP. We were very happy with them as they were funny, friendly and prompt. It was nice to be spoiled the whole week through.

Thanks for your thoughtful, thorough and very good review!

[nothomeonacruise]

I like the idea of Frommers. I'll get it before we leave next month.

 

Good review!!

[SunnyinMA]

Thanks so much for taking the time to write a nice, long review!

[Patgo28]

Your review of the Triumph was great. Did you also write one for FOS. I looked but have not found one on the RCCL board yet.

 

How would you compare the two to each other and if you HAD to choose one which one would it be.

 

Thanks

[teanbean16]

Thanks for the review.:) :) Really enjoyed it.